On the promotional page for the workshop they said “This course is for anyone that has an interest in applying the design process to solve complex problems. It’s likely you’ll have many transferable skills or experiences that will be put to use through the course of the day.” Cool. That’s exactly what I want to be able to do.

What did we do?

In the workshop we worked through the components that make up the practise of service design:

Discovery: gaining empathy and understanding the needs and pain points of users.

Ideation: Developing a range of ideas on how to develop a solution to meet the needs of all users.

Prototyping: Testing and iterating, including the customer experience, “front of house” interactions, and back of house dependencies.

Communication: Articulating the many facets of your offering in a concise way.

Discovery

Define

“How might we..” “for…” “so that…”

Deliver – Service blueprinting and role play

Completed service blueprint for our solution.We use role play to articulate the customer journey and services we designed.

In this recipe, I learned how to use the loadStrings() function to load a text file from my hard drive into the String array. I also learned how to loop through the array in the draw() function and then use the number of characters in each line of text to calculate the diameter for the ellipse to be drawn.

In this recipe I learned how to use the Android DisplayMetrics class to determine general information about the display of the device used to run the sketch. While this is more of a diagnostic recipe than a creative one, I think it’s pretty useful way for finding out more about the capabilities of your device which could then inform the way you code your sketch. Nice.

In this recipe I learned how to use the QUAD_STRIP and TRIANGLE_STRIP parameters inside the beginShape function to draw triangle or quad 3D geometry to screen. With some work, QUAD_STRIP and TRIANGLE_STRIP could be used to draw 3D grass and lawn geometry on screen for Sew, Grow and Mow as an alternative to pre-modelled geometry. Maybe.

This code draws the QUAD_STRIP and then rotates it around the centre of the screen. I particularly like how vertex (x1, y1, 0) and vertex(x2, y2, 50 + i) are used to add two vertices to the shapes with each iteration of the for loop.

In this recipe I learned how to use the ENABLE_DEPTH_TEST and the DISABLE_DEPTH_TEST parameter inside the hint function at the beginning and end of the draw function to to enable and disable the z buffer. This means the first black square intersects the coloured 3D cubes, while the second white square is drawn on top of the coloured 3D cubes. The DISABLE_DEPTH_TEST parameter would be useful if you wanted to display user interface elements such as buttons, banners or instructional text on top of the 3D environment.

In this recipe I learned how to create a 3D cylinder with a flexible function that allows for the top, bottom and sides of the cylinder to be customised. In this recipe, the QUAD_STRIP parameter (draws a series of connected quads) is introduced in the beginShape function.

Once again, the frameCount system variable is used to rotate each 3D object by one degree per frame as the value of the variable is increased by one in each frame.

Removing the code responsible for drawing the bottom and sides of the each cylinder to learn more about how the function draws the cylinder to the screen.
Removing the code responsible for drawing the top and bottom of the each cylinder to learn more about how the function draws the cylinder to the screen.
Removing the code responsible for drawing the top and sides of the each cylinder to learn more about how the function draws the cylinder to the screen.

Making my way through the Using lights recipe from the Processing 2 Creative programming cookbook source code on GitHub. In this recipe, I learned how to declare the lightMode and lightDirection integers to allow for different lighting modes to be activated. Inside the setUp function they’re assigned a value of 0 and then referenced again in the if test. In this recipe, I also learned how to use the lights, directionalLight, ambientLight, pointLight and spotLight functions for the different lighting modes, even the noLights function for a no lighting mode.

This recipe contains code for generating and animating 3D primitives (first demonstrated in Drawing 3D primitives recipe) used to demonstrate the lighting setup. This recipe also contains code for a keyboard interface (first demonstrated in the Keyboard interaction recipe) to activate different lighting modes. For this keyboard interface, N = no lights, L = lights, D = directional light, A = ambient light, P = point light, S = spot light. The Up, Right, Down and Left arrow keys also change the direction of the light when the directional light is activated.

My exploration of how we learn and how we design and develop stuff that helps us learn.

What am I doing?

I've been repossessed to skate. That's the name I’ve given my activity of learning and practising how to skate (again), specifically in the context of ongoing sessions at local skateparks and in the urban environment of repurposed ruin. The feeling is back and the hurt is good.
Preparing for my first live *Repossessed to Skate broadcast on Twitch.